


Chocolate Cinnamon Orli

by sheldrake



Category: Lord of the Rings RPF
Genre: Cats, Crack, Fandom, Friendship, Meta, Metamorphosis, Other, Weirdness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-07-17
Updated: 2004-07-17
Packaged: 2017-10-07 14:41:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/66137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sheldrake/pseuds/sheldrake
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The danger of fandom cliches.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Chocolate Cinnamon Orli

One day, Orlando wakes up and finds that all the cliches are true.

He is catlike, because he _is _a cat, with fleas and worms and a taste for the insides of birds. His eyes _are_ like chocolate. They're made of chocolate. He is blind because of his chocolate eyes, and they melt in the sun and dribble stickily into his fur. He _does_ taste of cinnamon. And smell of cinnamon. And if you pat him, great choking clouds of cinnamon come puffing out of his dusty fur. He leaves cinnamon all over the sofa when he's been lying there, and the chocolate from his eyes trickles warmly onto the cushions and eventually becomes ingrained in the fabric. He leaves little brown confectionary pawprints wherever he goes. Because he is blind, he bumps into things and then they have cinnamon and chocolate smudges on them.

He chases birds and sometimes he even catches them. He can't see them, but he can smell them, and they can smell him. He suffocates them with his cinnamon fumes, and then he rips out their guts.

Orlando's old friends still keep an eye out for him. Sometimes they come round to the cat sanctuary where he lives now, and they sit awkwardly on the sofas and chairs in the lounge. The old lady who runs the sanctuary makes them tea, and they pretend to sip at it while they look over at Orlando and try to breathe through their mouths. If it's Billy or Elijah or Dom, they'll talk about old times. They'll say, do you remember? Do you remember New Zealand, Orli? Do you remember Mexico? Do you remember surfing and beer and women, Orli? And then they'll be quiet, because they're not sure whether it hurts him to hear about these things.

Orlando listens and snuffles through his cinnamon-clogged passages, and tries to nod, and tries to laugh. But he's a cat now, and these things are difficult. It's to do with muscles and vocal chords and things.

Orlando tries to chat with his old mates and make self-deprecating jokes about his situation. He doesn't often manage to shape the words, but now and then something gets through and everyone bursts into spontaneous relieved merriment. He's still in there, you see! Still old Orli. Still the same old Orli.

Once, Viggo came to see him. He didn't say much. He just sat on the sofa and stroked him a little bit, around the ears and under the chin. Orli dug his claws into the cushions and tried not to breathe. He worries a lot about his foul cinnamon and birdgut-sweet breath.

When all the visitors are gone, Orlando goes back into his pen. He doesn't have to, but he feels safer there. The other cats don't seem to like him much. They hiss when they see him, and they have the advantage, because Orlando can't see them. Not that they come near him much. The smell seems to put them off. The other cats don't understand Orlando, and Orlando doesn't understand them, either. He's the only one with chocolate in his eye-sockets and a dull film of pungent dust coating his twisty fur. He's the only one who's really an actor, and not a cat at all, inside.

In the stillness of his pen, Orlando gnaws on the tiny, brittle bones of a starling, and listens to them crunch inside the dark brown chasm of his skulll.


End file.
